Following the great earthquake in Japan this last year, it was observable among the people that while there was anxiety there was also order. Other nations marveled, “Where is the looting and the chaos among the people?”
My wife was listening to the radio and heard about a study that was conducted to answer that exact question. The sum of the study said that while an American young person would ask,
“Will I get in trouble for this?” the Japanese young person asks, “What would this do to others?”
To think communally is still embedded in the Asian culture. The center of reference is not the individual self. It is still true that their Japanese culture cannot redeem them and they will need to turn to the Son of God as their center of reference. However, the Asian Christian is one-up on the western Christian, in that, loving your neighbor isn’t alien to their thinking. The western believer must re-tool the way they think about themselves and others due in large part to their culture; first to love the Lord God, and second to love communally.
Holy Minestrone 